[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
Yeah, but clocks can’t be created in a vacuum: they require a good degree of relatively advanced metallurgical technology, including the ability to cut gears and make reliable springs {I’m assuming it was a spring driven clock rather than a pendulum mechanism, since it sat on the mantelpiece}, which wasn’t attained until the early 15th Century - and even clocks then were expensive, unreliable and rare. The Dwarves could probably have crafted a fairly cunning clock if they’d put their minds to it, but apart from making nifty swords and jewellery, there’s no indication that they had a technical bent remarkable any later than say AD 900.
Bilbo’s clock, in contrast, seems to be a relatively unremarkable possession for an independently wealthy country gentleman, and thus seems to belong to around the 18th Century. In the light of the apparent lack of any comparable technology, it is, as Merlin put in in The Sword In The Stone, “A beastly anachronism. That is what it is, a beastly anachronism.”
[/QUOTE]
You are just suppose to assume that it was indeed a dwarven contraption and leave it at that. 
The Hobbit is a fairy tale. The Lord of the Rings is an Epic story. The fact that an epic story grew as a sequel to the Hobbit, means that many oddities crept into the story that would not have, if the Lord of the Rings was written, unencumbered by the Fairy Tale that was the Hobbit.
Keep in mind, that almost all of the classic Arthurian Tales were filled with beastly anachronisms as 11th through 15th century writers were writing badly about a 5th or 6th century King.
BTW: Good analysis on the clock making, I do think the dwarves could indeed and had a small clock making business going. It is a stretch, but at least one that can be somewhat accepted.
[QUOTE=Laughing Lagomorph]
So suppose Aragorn at some point had taken the Ring and claimed it for his own.
Is there any remote conceivable way a mortal, even one as powerful and charismatic as Aragorn, wielding the Ring could have overthrown Sauron, or were all such such thoughts only delusions caused by the Ring itself to attempt to get back to its master?
[/QUOTE]
Sauron feared this greatly. It is possible that with a little time, Aragorn, Gandalf, Galadriel or even Saruman may have been able to defeat Sauron if they learned to control* the Ring. Of course, they still would not be able to destroy Sauron and he probably would have found a way to beat them in the end, on the other hand Gandalf would be a “Terrible” tyrant. He was the wisest of the Maia and may have made Sauron his slave and lackey. Saruman was not as wise, but learned and skillful. He to would have been especially frightening to Sauron.
Aragorn, well Aragorn, may have won and then Sauron would have found a trick to corrupt him or betray him. He probably would have feared Gandalf allowing Aragorn to rally the troops and then turning around a seizing the Ring for himself once Sauron and his army were defeated.
Jim
- Of course none of them would be able to control the Ring, it would eventual control them in many subtle ways.
